Seventeen years after recording his debut album -- and eight more independently released albums later -- Granger Smith has notched his first career top 10 single this week on Billboard’s Hot Country Songs chart and Country Airplay chart with “Backroad Song.”

The catchy ode to small town-living is the lead single from his first major label release, Remington, which he exclusively told Forbes will arrive on March 4 via BBR Music Group’s Wheelhouse Records.

Written within two years during which the married baritone from Dallas lost his dad to a heart attack but also became a dad of two kids himself, the emotional 15-track album features songs about his late father (“Tractor”), lost love (“Echo”), hard-earned cash (“Blue Collar Dollars”), parties (“Tonight”) and other country music motifs.

“My songs are my best method of expressing the chapters of my life,” Smith told Forbes. “This album has been a journey for me -- two years of writing and recording, releasing an EP in the middle and signing my first record deal at the completion.”

On the title track, Smith proclaims, “I’m a Remington” -- strong and dependable like the Remington 870 gun he owned when he was growing up in Texas.

Come release day it’s “Backroad Song” that will have likely attracted people to buy or stream the album. The track’s lyric video, below, has racked up 2.6 million YouTube views, and the song will only gain momentum when the official music video premieres on Jan. 16 on CMT’s Hot 20 Countdown.